Thomas Hardy's Ale Reborn

This beauty arrived by post yesterday so I thought it was time to end my silence.

The rights to the Thomas Hardy Ale name have now passed to a company in Italy called Interbrau. This preview edition should certainly whet the appetite of beer connoisseurs everwhere. They've gone back to the original pint and half pint bottles from 1968 for the design. The wax capsule is an attractive touch, although there appears to be a crown cork beneath it.

The ale is brewed to the classic strength of 11.7%, who brews or will brew has not been revealed although we are assured that it will be in England. This re-incarnation may well be more successful than O'Hanlon's. The beer market has move on a lot in 10 years and there are plenty of beer geeks who won't mind paying top dollar for a beer that is a statement. "Look at me. Money's no object to show what superior taste I have." Others will buy just the one bottles and stare lovingly at it from time to time, never getting round to actually drinking it. Which is what happened first time round.

Glenair P*ss Artistes

Thomas Hardy's Ale was advertised for many years as the 'Rarest Beer in Britain'. It's highly unlikely that this proclamation was ever true for the yearly vintages. Many thousands of bottles were produced each year and even as sales dwindled they would be in excess of those from the upstart micros.

However, Eldridge Pope did produce one edition in 1985 that was limited to about 12 bottles only as far as I know. I don't know who the Glenair P*ss Artistes were although their names are listed on the label. I believe that one of them may have been employed at Eldridge Pope and was able to convince the brewery hierarchy to re-badge a few bottles of their flagship ale. Anyway, I've got one bottle!

Thomas Hardy's Ale

The more observant amongst you will have noticed that I have a passion for Thomas Hardy's Ale.

At the birth of CAMRA there were four classic bottled conditioned beers in the U.K.

Hardy’s Ale was one, the others being Gale’s Prize Old Ale, Courage Imperial Russian Stout and Guinness.

Russian Stout disappeared in 1993 and Guinness has not been bottle-conditioned for donkeys’ years. The name Prize Old Ale lives on but Gales’ has closed and new owners Fuller's brew it at Chiswick sans the iconic corked bottles. Hardy’s Ale limped on until 1999. Eldridge Pope couldn’t even be bothered producing a vintage for the Millennium.

The final vintage from Eldridge Pope

Thomas Hardy’s Ale was brewed to an impressive 12% strength. This robustness explains why it is still sought after today, over 10 years after the last bottles were filled.  More of a barley wine than an ale, (that isn’t a cue for an argument please), I’ve tasted examples from the mid 70s which had matured beautifully like vintage port. I suspect that corners were cut in the final years which don’t have the same depth of flavours. Note though, that I’ve rarely had a bad bottle no matter how decrepit or faded the label may look.

The prime reason that Hardy’s Ale was never a commercial success was poor marketing. The original commemorative vintage from 1968 had a sticker on the bottle stating ‘DO NOT OPEN BEFORE JULY 1969’. When the ale was revived as a regular brew in 1974 the sticker said ‘DO NOT OPEN BEFORE JUNE 1978’ and by 1979 it stated DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 1989. Yes, you were told not to drink it for a whole ten years!! What terrible fate would befall anyone who ignored this doom-laden warning is unclear, but it meant that Thomas Hardy’s Ale was a museum piece from the start. Many people bought a bottle or two to stash away as a souvenir for a future event but few people actually drank the stuff. I know that this is true because I’ve still got two bottles purchased in a London branch of Waitrose in 1988. Of course, this has become a blessing in disguise for a new generation of drinkers because there are still numerous bottles hidden away in nooks and crannies and which are regularly advertised for sale on eBay. I’ve learned that brewery employees were given cases of the ale in the 90s as gifts, presumably because they weren’t selling in the pubs and off licenses. A lot of these cases are still intact lurking in pantries and garages.  By various means I’ve managed to amass a collection of about 200 bottles which will keep me going for some time yet.

In the 80s the brewery presumably saw the error of its ways and merely advised that the ale would keep for 25 years. However, the damage had been done and the perception remained that the ale shouldn’t be drunk too young. Sales in Britain were rarely exceptional and it was the export market, in particular to the U.S. that allowed production to continue as long as it did.




My sort of party ¹

  The demise of Eldridge Pope saw the right to the Thomas Hardy’s Ale name purchased by the American company Phoenix Imports. There was much rejoicing when they commissioned O'Hanlon's with a brief to re-create the ale as faithfully as possible. This they did with details that included the much-loved neck medallions and individual bottle numbers which had both been lost as Eldridge Pope cut costs. However, the joy was short-lived as the new ale lasted only 4 years before O’Hanlon’s pulled the plug citing the expense of producing a specialist ale in small quantities. It is believed that they were pushed into this decision by advisors after taking part in a reality-type TV programme.

Given the increased interest in unusual and rare brews mostly of high alcoholic strength it is to be hoped that Phoenix will resurrect Hardy’s Ale for a second time in the none too distant future.

Photo courtesy of Stan Hieronymus